Katie Couric thinks you need a bath

Once was a time when network news nabobs considered everything between the New York-DC corridor and Los Angeles as "flyover country"-- the vast middle of America that looked eastward for guidance and leadership, and west for news of dead celebrities and earthquakes.,not worthy or economical for coverage beyond the occasional natural disaster or shooting spree. That time passed abut twenty-five years ago, as cheap satellite technology made it possible to set up camp in any part of the world, and the advent of tabloid television era broke the elitist network news grip on coverage and influence and changed the news coverage palette for good.

So it's quaint at the least to see that "Katie" Couric, who's taken over as "anchor" of the anachronistic CBS Evening News, still refers to everything West of the Hudson as "this great unwashed middle of the country."

"Unwashed" or "Great unwashed" is a derogatory term for the multitude of "ordinary" people.

CBS News handout photo

Now you know why you haven't noticed those network news shows, and why it's probably a good idea, as Howard Kurtz's article in the Daily Beast indicates, that she stay on the job for a few more years at a reduced salary.

CBS News loses another black star

CBS News has lost another of its prominent African American stars with the death this weekend of 48 Hours reporter Harold Dow. Dow reportedly died unexpectedly yesterday at 62. He'd gotten his start in television in Santa Monica, and had been based in New York since 1982, when we worked with him at the CBS Nightwatch overnight show. He was a hardworking, genial colleague.

Dow's death makes him the second African American star of CBS News to died in his prime since Katie Couric took over as chief newsreader in September 2006. Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes fame died at 65 in 2006.

Both men were known to sport earrings.

Katie Couric diddles while CBS News burns

While CBS News staffers clear out their desks or find themselves banned from entering the building during a week of bloody, unsparing layoffs for the once revered division, their field marshal, chief newsreader, celebrity and most highly-paid worker in television news, "Katie" Couric, plays Leon Helmsley for Harper's Bazaar magazine. The big powerful television news authority, national balm during times of emergency and crisis, using her blog words like "gussied up," "glamour puss" and "moi," playing make-up and dress-up like a spoiled little girl. In the words of the late Pauly Fuemana, how bizarre. Bad timing, anyone?

All's well at CBS News: Katie's salary is safe

Comforting to know that in wake of the brutal axing of around 150 CBS News employees-- and these CBS News people are loyal, hard-working, True Believers who operate on the assumption that they and their battered ship are something special-- like that Letterman extortion guy did-- that the president of CBS News is assuring the rest of the media that they have no plan to trim the chubby $15 million salary of their last-place chief newsreader (and highest-paid TV journo) "Katie" Couric.

Sez Sean McManus: “Katie’s work on the Evening News, 60 Minutes and special events is brilliant. Nobody in the business works harder than Katie and I can tell you unequivocally that there have been and are no plans and not even a single discussion about making a change or renegotiating.”

Savour those words for now. We'll revisit them a few months down the line when it's announced that "Katie" is moving to afternoon talk. (Oprah's leaving, and you remember the Jane Pauley show...)

(Drudge quotes a "veteran producer" saying ""She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!" which is cute, because producers make a lot more than that...)

Hey, CBS News has to pay her salary

Word began spreading a few days ago that CBS News (the network division whose putative field marshal is called "Katie") was in for some layoffs this week, with as many as 100 people-- seven percent of the 1,400 staffers around the world-- getting the axe. Day one of the week has ended and apparently the suits om CBS Human Resources don't follow the practice of giving the hard word on Friday afternoons so the fired ones will have a weekend to cool off before deciding to return to the office with a rifle.

After what went on today, they're calling it "Black Monday."

Writes one CBS Newser:

"Black Monday -- it's been a brutal day at CBS News, layoffs in DC, London, NY, LA, Miami, just about everywhere. We lost some very good people today."

Brian Williams, call your agent...

A little more than six weeks after the death of Walter Cronkite, it's announced that former Nixon aide Diane Sawyer will take over as anchor of the ABC World News Tonight nightly newscast. Your move, Jeff Zucker.

Dean Reynolds is the new face of network news arrogance, elitism and irrelevance

CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds makes news by complaining about campaign creature comforts and deadlines through that hip yuppie thing called "blogging" on the CBS News site (the one that Katie Couric pretends to "blog" on):

"...The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps...

"The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.

"The other day in Albuquerque, N.M., the reporters were given almost no time to file their reports after McCain spoke. It was an important, aggressive speech, lambasting Obama's past associations. When we asked for more time to write up his remarks and prepare our reports, the campaign readily agreed to it. They understood.

"Similar requests are often denied or ignored by the Obama campaign aides...."

Boo hoo hoo.

Katie Couric tells Israel she's a victim of "sexism"

"I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance,
and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized
not long ago: that sexism in the American society
is more common than racism,
and certainly more acceptable or forgivable."
--Katie Couric, CBS News

Katie Couric is in Israel for the first time, on vacation while Barack Obama is in Iraq, yet acting like she's campaigning, treated and acting like a celebrity, and talking about herself and her plight, as in the following "monologue" in Tel Aviv that's quoted in Haaretz:

"I have no doubt in my heart that I made the right move, accepting the CBS offer. I would have regretted it otherwise. It's true that the pressure was immense and the expectations almost impossible. One person cannot perform such miracles and transform a whole network on his own.

"It's also true I'm not doing today exactly what I've been brought to do, and that my chance to express myself is fairly limited in the 22-minutes format, but I still enjoy my work, I think it's important and fascinating, and do believe we can make a change with time, bit by bit.

"Unfortunately I have found out that many viewers are afraid of change. The glory days of TV news are over, and the media landscape has been dramatically changed. News is available now for everyone, everywhere, all the time, and everybody fights for the last pieces of the shrinking pie. The corporate pressure and the ratings terror are intensifying all the time, and the situation is not simple. I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: that sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable. In any case, I think my post and Hillary's race are important steps in the right direction."

She added:

"My mother is Jewish, but I've been raised as a Presbyterian. I'm interested in finding out more about these roots."

Why don't people watch Katie Couric? She lies.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

"Katie Couric said she’s not going anywhere -- at least not any time soon.

"Facing the press for the first time since reports surfaced this spring that she was preparing to leave the CBS News anchor chair after the presidential election, Couric said today that she’s staying put.

“'We have no plans to part company any time soon,' Couric said. 'And there were a lot of speculative pieces that I think got, quite frankly, spun out of control.'

"...The anchor referred obliquely to talks she had with CBS executives earlier this year about her future on the broadcast. In the discussions, Couric and the network officials agreed to table any decision until after the presidential election.

“'You know, we always assess how the show is doing and what direction we want to go in. And so clearly when you work for an organization you have ongoing discussions,' Couric said. 'But I’m very committed to the people here.'”

Network newsreaders ought to talk straight. Katie's "denial" is Clintonesque in its equivocation. Of course she's leaving soon. the network just doesn't want to blow off the election ratings and they can't let her walk until Lara Logan is back from maternity leave.

Parsing the words to squeeze out the real meaning:

"any time soon."

"ongoing discussions."

On the beach

"...some people close to Ms. Couric, as well as some professional associates, said... they believed that it was now likely she would not remain as anchor through the election, and might even leave in the next few weeks..."

--The New York Times, April 11, 2008

"...If you’re going to hire a woman from the Today Show, go with Ann Curry. She’s a reader. She’s aging better than Katie. And her ploy of wearing bright red lipstick one day, then transparent gloss lipstick the next, gives a reason to tune in."

--TabloidBaby.com, March 16, 2006

Katie Couric didn't work out. Duh.

So who's really surprised that Katie Couric's time at the CBS Evening News didn't work out? From the start, we saw the injection of the perky pudgy celebrity into the CBS News hot seat as Les Moonves' way of throwing a bomb into CBS News and taking out the too-powerful nabobs with their liberal agenda. And with Katie's imminent departure announced the same week it's "leaked" that the news division may soon be farming out field work to CNN producers and reporters, it appears that Moonves' plan is unfolding, after all.

It's not bragging to say we were laughing at the idea as far back as December 2005, when we wrote:

"Here’s some free advice for Sean McManus and Les Moonves and CBS News. Save the $20 million a year. Katie Couric’s not worth it. She’s a former cutie who’s been temporarily retooled into a glamour puss. She’s pushing fifty. She’s not going to age well, physically or emotionally. And people don’t like to work with her. Katie’s a morning show host. Reading the TelePrompter and gravitas ain’t her shtick. Give her a talk show and move on.

"Besides, it’s a new century. The network news half hour is over. It doesn’t matter!"

But for real prescience, there was LA Dodger Jon at the neglected (by him) Hollywood Thoughts, who, two years ago in a post entitled "Katie Couric is the new Kathie Lee, "predicted the entire timetable (with the bizarre twist that Katie's imminent departure is announced the same week Kathie Lee Gifford climbs on board the Today show).

And if we all knew it wasn't going to work, CBS had to know. Right? Just like the people at Fox had to know that Chevy Chase would never work as a talk show host. Right? We realize the newsies in the CBS "fishbowl" are out of touch with America, but the corporate overlords can't be that out of touch with reality. We'll stick with our theory that there was a lot more to the Katie Couric era than has yet been revealed. And repeat our suggestion that Ann Curry's a better choice.